


back and then forward

by fencesit



Category: Naruto
Genre: Doctor Haruno Sakura, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Haruno Sakura-centric, POV Haruno Sakura, Time Travel, Uchiha Izuna Lives, Warring Clans Era (Naruto)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:11:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26180152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fencesit/pseuds/fencesit
Summary: Her client either doesn't actually know the ninja's name or (equally likely) knows that ninja of this era despise introductions, but Sakura knows the name of her new coworker: Uchiha Madara is standing in front of her, wild-haired and distinctively relaxed, looking no older than her — not quite a teenager anymore, coming into his full adult height and broad shoulders, but much younger than he had looked during the Fourth War.Seeing him is a literal nightmare come to life, but Sakura is a professional. She bows politely and does not let her hands tremble. "I look forward to working with you.""Likewise," Madara says, perfectly polite and yet clearly not meaning it. Clearly dismissing her, because she's a young, pink-haired,civilianwoman.Well. She'll show him.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 55
Kudos: 1034
Collections: Alternate Universe Exchange 2020





	back and then forward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [noun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noun/gifts).



"I can't pay much," the man in front of her says. 

Sakura is working today out of the back room of the local drinking hole, for the fifth day in a row. The man might have traveled a significant distance from out of town to see her; she's already built up the kind of reputation that travels fast, and he has that desperate look about him that says he might not actually be able to afford _anything_. 

Lucky for him that Sakura still finds the idea of charging patients like him directly for medical aid vaguely uncomfortable, like when a foreign word just doesn't fit in your mouth right no matter how much you practice. 

"The price is negotiable." Sakura leans forward. "Tell me what's wrong." 

It's the same as always, of course. Muscle pain, fatigue, something that didn't heal right. Sakura doesn't have medicine or physical therapy to offer — there are many things she simply lacks the time and resources and support system to fix the way she could in Konoha — but even a short visit with a medical nin of Sakura's caliber is probably more legitimate medical care than this man has ever had in his life. 

The man walks out fifteen minutes later owing her a favor that she may or may not collect. If she comes this way again it may prove valuable to know there's a homestead where she can find easy room and board, but if she doesn't come this way again (or if she does, but forgets) then it's fine. An afternoon's worth of chakra lost to healing minor aches and pains in a poor town like this isn't something to keep a serious ledger over, and Sakura would forgo the dance of debt and repayment if only attempting to do so weren't seen as an insult. 

The real cash that Sakura uses to support herself comes from customers with money, like local lords and self important merchants. This is simply a waypoint between the last time she took such a job and the next time she'll be sought out for her skills. It's more effective, she's found, to look less ambitious. Word quickly spreads wherever she sets up shop, and she seems more genuine to civilians when she doesn't seem to be _trying_ to look for work. 

Looking for work is something a ninja would do, after all, and Sakura can't be seen as a ninja. For all anyone in this time period knows, Sakura is _only_ a healer, one driven by her mysterious past to wander the Land of Fire giving aid to those who require it and never showing a lick of combat ability. 

It's safer this way. Being a lone ninja in this pre-village era is as good as a death sentence, even worse than being a missing-nin under the village system. 

Sakura can't take any risks; she has too much that she needs to accomplish. 

* * *

On her seventh day staying at the tavern a servant comes from the manor of a nearby lord, entreating her to come see the man's wife through her difficult pregnancy. Sakura has more experience with treating wounds than she does pregnancy, but Tsunade had made sure she had a _very_ complete education, and it won't even be the first baby Sakura's seen into the world. She gives her thanks to the locals and leaves with the servant. 

"If you can only save one, she can always have more kids," the lord says when she meets with him, but Sakura is determined to save them both. It's a matter of professional pride — even decades upon decades in the past, with not much more supplies than boiled water and whatever herbs she can pick herself, Haruno Sakura is _still_ more than good enough at everything Tsunade taught her to see this job through. 

She overhauls the woman's diet. She institutes a gentle exercise regimen. She orders supplies. Three weeks into the job, she catches the new maid slipping pieris nectar into her patient's tea. It turns out that the woman is closely related to the Daimyō and if the baby lives it will be something like 5th in the line of succession. 

The lord of the house calls her into the main hall soon after she catches the would-be poisoner and provides paltry introductions to the man unexpectedly standing at his side. "Shinobi-san, this is Sakura, a local healer of great renown," he says. "Sakura-san, this ninja will be responsible for the safety and security of the household for the rest of the year. Please take any concerns or suspicions straight to him." 

Her client either doesn't actually know the ninja's name or (equally likely) knows that ninja of this era despise introductions, but Sakura knows the name of her new coworker: Uchiha Madara is standing in front of her, wild-haired and distinctively relaxed, looking no older than her — not quite a teenager anymore, coming into his full adult height and broad shoulders, but much younger than he had looked during the Fourth War. 

Seeing him is a literal nightmare come to life, but Sakura is a professional. She bows politely and does not let her hands tremble. "I look forward to working with you." 

"Likewise," Madara says, perfectly polite and yet clearly not meaning it. Clearly dismissing her, because she's a young, pink-haired, _civilian_ woman. 

Well. She'll show him. 

* * *

Madara is always nearby, even when she sleeps. She has to swallow waves of fear and terror, she has to sleep the kind of light mission-sleep that won't let her slip into unwelcome nightmares of a future that she'll _never_ allow to happen, she has to keep her use of chakra to an absolute minimum, and most of all she has to constantly talk herself out of simply poisoning him and being done with it. 

The village won't be founded without Hashirama _and_ Madara. If she's going to kill him it has to be _after_ that, no matter that it will be much, much harder to get away with it once the village has come together. 

One day, when Sakura is preparing a salve to help with her patient's swollen feet, Madara sidles up to her in the polite, careful way that says he's trying not to scare her. 

"Healer," he says carefully. "If I might have a moment of your time." 

Sakura sets her things down and looks at him. 

"You know who I am," he accuses. 

There's no point in denying it. "I do." 

"I frighten you," he says. 

Sakura looks away. There's even less point in denying _that_. If he's noticed, then she should just count herself lucky she hasn't given away that she also loathes him. 

"I don't know if it's a fear of ninja, or of my clan, or of myself specifically," Madara says carefully, "but I mean you no harm. I take my duty to protect your patient seriously, and protecting her means protecting her midwife. I have no quarrel with you. If there's anything I might do to put you at ease, I would gladly attempt it." 

She sneaks a glance back at him. "'Attempt'?" 

Madara's mouth twists into a wry line, something that's very nearly a smile. "I frighten even some members of my own clan, being a monster among monsters, so I will make no solemn vows to cease frightening anyone." 

Sakura almost, _almost_ feels bad for fearing and hating him in equal measure. It's not his fault, after all. Not _yet_. "You simply remind me of someone else," she offers. 

It's better to take this olive branch now and stab him in the back later, after all. And _maybe_ she won't have to kill him. Maybe she can see in him whatever it was that drew him and Hashirama together. 

* * *

She relaxes slowly. Her patient isn't much of a conversationalist (at least, not with the help) and she and Madara have somehow found themselves talking more and more. They share meals. They trade gossip about the places they've been somewhat recently — Sakura up to the border of what will someday be Land of Mountains, Madara to the capital. 

Madara sometimes leaves abruptly and returns smelling of smoke or blood and takes whole days to creep back to sit at her side the way he was when he left. Each time he seems to think the reminder of the violence he's capable of will return Sakura to that terror she'd felt at their first meeting, but it never does. 

Sakura hasn't forgotten his power. She has no illusions about what he could do, about what he _might_ do. But she's known plenty of powerful people...and she and Madara are something like teammates now, although Sakura leaves Madara solidly out of the loop when it comes to her ability to use chakra and her ninja training. 

She performs visual checks to make sure he's not injured every time he comes back and then coaxes him back into her orbit while trying not to think about how her eyes linger over his broad shoulders, over his lips, over the way his hair catches in the sunlight or lamplight or moonlight. That's not the kind of looking she should be doing, she tells herself firmly each time, only to find herself inevitably doing it again. 

He's handsome, she has to admit, but he's out of her reach. And she _might_ have to kill him in a few years. There's no point in thinking about kissing him until she knows which way the blade will fall. 

* * *

The baby is born premature and sickly. Sakura takes to sleeping in the mother's room with the baby also close at hand. She and Madara have now been acquainted for months, sharing the occasional cup of tea or piece of gossip for more than half that time. She's firmly come around to the belief that he won't be murdering her while they're working together; soon the nightmares might even stop. Already they've dimmed, such that she jerks awake sometimes with no recollection of what dream had disturbed her. 

Now is one such time, Sakura's heart hammering in her chest and her body trembling to leap up and fight something. 

It doesn't help that Madara is creeping around the perimeter of the room, his shadow occasionally obscuring the moonlight coming in from outside, as he makes his usual dead-of-the-night patrol. It might have been his presence, even, that woke her — directly or, by influencing her dreams, indirectly. 

Knowing he's here in her defense and in defense of her client, despite what her subconscious tells her, is a strange sensation, a strangeness best chased away by speaking to him. Sakura is about to open her mouth and whisper some greeting to him so that he'll turn and face her and the moonlight will catch the slight, pleased curve of his lips and chase away the rest of her misplaced fear when he turns _just so_ in the moonlight and— 

The man creeping around the room has his straight hair pulled into a high ponytail. 

Fuck. 

Sakura lies still, forcing herself to keep relaxed, and closes her eyelids most of the way so that he won't see that she's awake if he looks at her. He moves around the room with soft footsteps and creeps closer to Sakura, her sleeping patient, and the baby. He might mean to kill them or he might mean to kidnap the baby or he might have not decided yet, but Sakura really _doesn't_ want to find out. 

There's a slight sound against the roof of the house that tells Sakura where Madara probably is, but her hopes that he'll soon enter the room of his own accord are dashed when it's followed by the quiet and near-imperceptible sounds of a scuffle on the roof. The would-be assassin-and-or-kidnapper in the room with Sakura brought backup. 

If she could alert Madara, he'd give up on being politely quiet about his fight and end it quick enough to get in here, but anything she could do that would alert Madara would alert the enemy in the room with her, and that would probably get messy. 

So Sakura bides her time, and waits, and waits, and when her enemy has begun to lean down over the client and Madara _still_ hasn't dispatched the one on the roof, Sakura springs out of her bedding and punches her enemy in the solar plexus so hard he sails through the half-closed shōji, over the engawa, and out into the garden. Sakura is fully on her feet, standing over her patient, by the time the man lands in the koi pond with an impressive splash. 

Hopefully Sakura hasn't killed any of the fish; they looked expensive and well-loved. 

Her patient stirs awake then, because even if she _could_ have slept through the destruction of the paper doors the baby is of course now crying in earnest. She scoops the baby up in her arms and then has only managed to stutter out a few confused syllables of whatever her first question was going to be before Madara is standing on the engawa, the unconscious or dead enemy he'd been fighting on the roof held in one hand by the scruff of the man's shirt. 

"Sakura?" he says hesitantly, his eyes tracing her for injury and _maybe_ lingering on the slightly loose way she's tied her sleeping yukata. 

It's certainly the most undressed _he's_ ever seen her, but Sakura used to show much more skin than this on hot days in Konoha. He can look if he wants. 

"We're fine." She has to force her hands to relax from their clenched fists. Now that Madara is here, she probably won't have to punch anyone else. "You?" 

He says, "Fine," but she can't see his face in enough detail to tell if he really means it. "What happened?" 

"I don't know," she says, lying with the kind of cheer and shamelessness that Kakashi-sensei had preferred. Helpfully, she suggests, "Check the pond." 

Madara glances behind himself at the koi pond, which still has ripples dancing across its surface from the guy Sakura had launched into it, and he sighs. The enemy he's holding gets dumped on the engawa while Madara picks his way across the garden and stands on the surface of the pond to fish out the second enemy. 

Sakura checks the guy he left on the engawa. Dead, very dead. 

"Drowned," Madara says of the guy he's pulled out of the pond. "We won't be able to find out who sent them." 

Whoops. 

"He's probably just mostly dead. Bring him over here." She slips off the engawa and meets Madara half way, has him hold the drowned man while she — with a nervous glance to Madara's face — sparks chakra to her fingers to force the water from the man's lungs until the man is coughing, sputtering, and definitely able to answer some questions. 

* * *

Sakura's night is split between checking that the koi weren't injured — it makes Madara give her a _look_ , but Sakura really would feel bad if she didn't check and one of them died — and trying to talk her patient out of a full-on nervous breakdown. Madara's is spent negotiating for the Uchiha to take on an additional assassination mission to firmly put a stop to the social climbing of the distant relative looking to knock the baby and its mother out of the line of succession. The kind of enemy that sends two ninja isn't going to _deescalate_ as the kid grows up, after all. 

When dawn begins brushing dim light over the world, Sakura watches Madara send a hawk summons to his clan with payment and details. It wings away, and they settle down to drink tea and watch servants neaten the parts of the garden disturbed by the night's excitement. "I don't think I've even seen the Senju do anything like that," he says into his tea, without looking at her. 

The Senju probably don't drown a lot while fighting the likes of Uchiha Madara, Sakura thinks but doesn't say. "The world has all kinds of people in it," she offers vaguely. 

"Yes," he says slowly, and a line of tension goes out of his shoulders— 

Ah, he'd probably been worried she was a secret Senju. It's a little foolish of him to take her word for it (wouldn't a secret Senju definitely lie about _being_ a Senju, Madara? Don't be so trusting!) but she's glad all the same. They've been working well together, and it will be awhile yet before Sakura can leave the baby behind and be sure it will survive. 

She maybe...doesn't want to fight him. Not just now, for the sake of the job, but maybe...maybe not _ever_. She has that damn soft, impressionable heart and he's plied her with harmless anecdotes about his family and painstaking if roughly-executed gentleness. 

If she's very lucky they'll never have to be enemies, but she'll try not to count on it; Uchiha are unpredictable and full of trouble. 

"What kind of people are your people?" Madara prods. When she looks at him sharply — nosy! Let a girl have her secrets! — his mouth twists wryly. "I'm not asking for your real name or their location," he assures her. "I'm only just now realizing that I've done most of the talking. You must be sick of it." 

She's not, not really, but he has probably just turned around and realized he doesn't know a thing about her. 

Sakura sighs. "They were brave and loyal and very skilled," she says, "but they're gone." It _hurts_ to talk about, but it's important to say it. It's important not to let herself forget or pretend. Brutal honesty is the only way forward; lying to herself won't help. 

Madara sets his tea cup down. "All of them?" His voice is so, so quiet. 

"All of them." She doesn't look at him and doesn't relinquish her teacup, only holding it as tightly as she dares for the lingering warmth, the tactile sensation accompanying sharing tea with someone who will found the home Sakura had been forced to leave behind. 

She's still not sure she was the best choice to send back, nor is she sure the seal was supposed to send her _so far back_ , but she has a knack for exceeding expectations. She'll save everyone who trusted her to do this and maybe she'll save Madara too. 

Somehow. 

* * *

Madara's summons returns when the assassination is complete, and it signals the beginning of the end of Madara's time at this lord's house — the danger has very likely passed, at least enough that the lord of the manor can save a little cash by downgrading his protection. It makes financial sense, but Sakura is still a little bitter about it. She's stuck here for a few months more, and she doubts Madara's replacement will be good company. 

"I hope we won't see each other across a battlefield," Madara says the night before he leaves, and _very carefully_ rests a hand on her shoulder. "I much prefer taking tea with you." 

His hand on her shoulder — the very _simplest_ of touches, almost nothing — feels almost electric, makes her shiver, and she has to reach a hand up and lay it over Madara's hand, pinning it in place. "We won't," Sakura says. 

"You can't know that." 

True. If he goes crazy, if he leaves the village, if he _comes back with the fucking Kyūbi_... but Sakura prefers optimism. 

"Even if clans start hiring me to heal for them"— which she doubts they will —"I won't fight for them. Besides, the first step to not fighting someone is to not _want_ to fight them." 

"That's never helped before," Madara mutters, but his hand squeezes her shoulder and she thinks she helped. 

Ridiculous, to be comforting Uchiha Madara. Almost unbelievable. 

She watches him leave the next day and is so glad she didn't poison him when she had the chance. 

* * *

Not every source of income can be as lavish and respectable and exciting as playing midwife for a lord's endangered wife. In fact, most of them can't be that, even though Sakura's work for that lord will probably lead to more such jobs in the future. Once the gossip makes the rounds, once the lord starts talking up her services and how he'd _spared no expense_ — 

But for now it's back to something much more humble and deeply boring. She finds her next job and then her next, passing from village to village, sometimes lingering in a town. She's invited to attend to a rich merchant, to a sour old noblewoman, to a troupe of popular actors. Her pink hair makes her distinctive — brand recognition is important — but nonthreatening. 

She sees Madara's hawks, sometimes. It's a prickling on her neck, a careful glance around, and then usually the hawk makes itself known to her — "It took forever to find you," they sometimes grumble, so she knows it's not that she's being constantly followed, but rather that three or four times a year Madara wants to...check up on her. 

Sakura doesn't _need_ checking up on, but she doesn't mind it either. She feeds them, and wishes Madara well through them, and occasionally they warn her that a bridge is washed out ahead and the like. 

Even more rarely they'll bring her a gift: a new writing set; a new blend of tea; a perfectly sharp, polished knife better for surgery than anything she could get her hands on as a civilian. 

Just once, one of his hawks brings her a job: _I do not know if it's within your power to fix,_ Madara's note says, _and I do not know if you'll visit any particular place on my urging, but long has this man been a valuable client for low-stakes missions. Please consider it_. 

Sakura goes; she knows that any ambush that might be laid against her will consist of enemies fatally unprepared to deal with her and that it's very unlikely to be a trick anyway. What she finds is that the man Madara had asked her to help had taken a nasty spill off his horse and suffered quite a bit of damage. Enough to kill him without the specialized medical care of a chakra-capable healer, enough that he isn't even awake to agree to pay her. 

But, well...she didn't come for the money. If it pays after she's saved the man, good. If not, fine. She came because Madara asked. 

She frightens the man's servants into obeying her, knowing she'll need assistants, and gets to work saving the man's life. 

* * *

She never used to understand why Tsunade frequently preferred drinking in shitholes and staying in care-worn establishments with troubling reputations, but years of building up her reputation until she's attending to more lords than not has actually brought out the old charm in them. It's nice to be in a place where people say what they think and do what they want, even if that place is a hot spring famously rumored to be a hotbed for prostitution. 

It has nice accommodations and competent staff, which is all Sakura actually cares about. 

Of course, the downside is that practically anyone can get in the door. Sakura pretends not to notice the ninja watching her from across the room when she's eating dinner on her third night at the hot spring. She eats as slowly as she pleases and makes idle conversation with the owner, passing gossip back and forth because building relationships is important and he's been very generous with her accommodations. 

The ninja will only approach her when she's alone. 

The room where Sakura has been staying is clean but serviceable, with a window that looks out over the gardens. Sakura has been alone for barely a minute before the ninja slips into the room and Sakura has to do her best to act surprised. 

The ninja is a man, with dark hair and dark eyes. He's wearing a mud-spattered blue coat and she can see hints of weapons and armor when he shifts. His features are familiar, like some clan she should know, but half the ninja she meets give her that unhelpful jolt of recognition. It's easy to see Kiba in every Inuzuka, Shino in every Aburame, Ino in every Yamanaka. She's not sure who she's seeing in this ninja. "You're the healer Sakura?" he asks. 

"Most people knock," Sakura tells him. Tsunade had taught her that the only way to get any respect was to demand it. 

To her surprise, the unfamiliar ninja actually _bows_. "I sought to protect your reputation," he says, "but meant no offense. It...didn't occur to me to knock at the window." He looks a little embarrassed about it, like he's remembering all the places he's entered via windows without pausing to knock first. 

Now she kind of feels bad. "What do you need?" 

He lowers his bow a few more degrees. "Our clan is in need of your services." 

Sakura frowns. "I don't—" 

"We will triple your usual rates." 

"I don't make house calls to shinobi clans," she finishes firmly. That's a one way ticket to all kinds of experiences Sakura would rather not have. 

To her horror the ninja lowers himself to his knees and, back perfectly straight, prostrates before her. 

"Get up," she hisses, but the ninja does not. 

"Madara-sama instructed me to beg if I must," the ninja says to the floor. 

And. Oh. _Oh_. "Is Madara hurt?" She can't imagine it, but it seems the most likely reason— 

The ninja rises from his seated bow to look at her. "Izuna-sama, Madara-sama's younger brother and heir. He was gravely wounded by the sword of Senju Tobirama. Here." The ninja indicates on his own body where the wound must be on Izuna. 

Sakura feels a whole slew of complicated emotions in a very short amount of time. "Prove you're an Uchiha," she demands instead of directly addressing any of them. 

The ninja's eyes flicker to Sharingan, tomoe spinning lazily. Sakura makes eye contact just long enough to confirm before spinning to pack her things rapidly. 

Madara wouldn't have sent for her if it wasn't a serious wound. There's no time to waste. 

* * *

The Uchiha who'd come to fetch her carries her through the night and for most of the next morning. They arrive at the edge of the Uchiha lands before the sun sets and breeze through farmlands and past checkpoints straight to what must be the main house. 

No one meets them in the genkan and the ninja who brought her doesn't enter the house further. "Someone will come wait here in case you need supplies," he says, "but not me, I'm going to go pass out. Go on." He gives her an encouraging gesture, just short of actually pushing her deeper into the house. 

So she goes, creeping through the house cautiously without bothering to actually try to sneak — surprising someone by creeping up on them would probably get her decapitated or set on fire or something — and in the end it's not very hard to find Madara at all. 

He's sitting vigil over his brother in what seems to be the main room of the house, as if he'd gotten Izuna this far and been unable to go farther. 

"Madara," she says. 

She keeps her stance relaxed and her hands empty when he whirls around to face her, having not apparently noticed her approach. 

"You came," he says. 

Sakura nods. "I need to examine him." 

Madara does nothing for a few moments, like he hasn't processed her words, but then he's shuffling aside to give her access, so that she can kneel down and find out what she's working with. 

The smell of the room and the pallor of Izuna's skin makes it clear that she won't find anything good, but it's...not as bad as she expected. It's _bad_ , sure, it's definitely enough to kill a person, but when Sakura had imagined the wound that killed Izuna...well, she's always had the benefit of growing up in a post-Tsunade Konoha, where it would have taken much more than a simple stab wound to leave a ninja dying, helplessly, for days. 

"Please," Madara says. "If there's anything you can do — even just ease his suffering—" 

Sakura turns to him, thinks about reaching for him but, ugh, she _has_ just stripped away Izuna's bandages, better not. She settles for words. "I'll save his life, so don't take that tone with me. He'll be fine." 

It might delay peace, but if Izuna lives then the problem of Madara is probably solved — and Sakura has by now made her peace with never meeting any of her friends and loved ones from before even if she lives to a truly impressive age. 

They'll never be the same as they were, and neither will Sakura. So she might as well change things as much as she can, and trust that everyone would have agreed that a better foundation for Konoha is more important than a carefully preserved possible future. 

* * *

It's hard work, pulling Izuna back from the edge, even after she's cleaned and healed the actual wound. Infections are tricky without antibiotics, and Izuna hasn't exactly been keeping all of his blood inside him where it belongs. That kind of physical trauma tends to strain the chakra system, too, and...suffice to say it's a delicate process. 

Madara claims that Izuna has wandered in and out of lucidity, and Izuna soon proves his brother right — coming awake just after Sakura has closed the last of the wound on his side and briefly succeeding in wrapping his hands around her throat because Sakura has been awake for long enough that her reaction times are dulled. 

"She's helping you," Madara says while he pulls Izuna's hands off her, his voice hushed and pleading. Even more gentle than when he's spoken to her. "She's trustworthy, don't hurt her, please. Please." 

"I said _no Senju_ ," Izuna hisses, voice rough with pain and hate, looking like he might stab himself just to spite Sakura for her hard work. 

"Stop being an idiot," Sakura requests, and then after another half second's consideration knocks Izuna out with a touch of chakra. 

Madara makes a wounded sound as Izuna goes suddenly and completely limp, dead weight in his arms. 

"I should have warned you," Sakura says, laying a cautious hand on Madara's arm. "It's nothing. He won't hurt himself now while I'm fixing him up. Put him back on the futon." 

"I thought I'd have to watch him die," Madara says dully as they resettle Izuna. 

"Now you'll get to watch him recover. He'll probably be cranky about it." Most ninja are. 

Madara huffs a short laugh. "He does have a temper when he's expected to stay still and heal. It's hard to say which of us will get the worst of it." He looks at her out of the corner of his eye. "I didn't know that you would come, but Ren says you didn't even discuss payment first." 

Sakura blinks. "If he'd led with your name I would have been here that much sooner," she says, slowly, not sure why they're on different pages about it. They haven't actually seen each other since those months spent drinking tea in the lord's house, but they've passed notes back and forth with Madara's summons. 

He's probably the person she's closest to, now. 

Madara nods, slowly, like he's been told something he wants to believe but needs to fact check. Sakura thinks she should probably puzzle that out, but she has a patient to see to. There will be time to talk to Madara later. 

* * *

Izuna is lightly dozing, his chest rising and falling steadily. He sometimes stirs awake, checks that Sakura still isn't a Senju, and then quickly slips back to sleep to avoid Madara's mother henning. Sakura has sat vigil for three days and four nights and now, with the sun streaking in through the shōji windows of Izuna's room, she feels confident after one last check to say to Madara, "He'll live." 

Madara's breath catches. "You're sure?" 

Sakura is more than sure, really. She had known from the start she'd be able to save him so long as no one did anything stupid. 

"He'll be sore and his side will be weak. First he'll have to not use it, then he'll have to do exercises to build the muscle back up. But he'll even fight again, just as well as he did before, if he's careful," Sakura says. 

For a moment it looks like Madara might genuinely, actually cry. 

"I need to sleep," Sakura says gently, to forestall any emotional outbursts that she is _very_ not equipped to handle. "We can discuss anything else after that." 

"Of course," he says, voice thick, "of course. This way. We have plenty of rooms." 

* * *

When she wakes up it's dark and the house is quiet. She listens for a moment, observes her surroundings carefully — there are birds making quiet, hopeful noises outside, so it's probably just very _very_ early in the morning. Sakura pries herself out of bed, dresses, and goes in search of tea. She finds a helpful, if skittish, woman in the kitchen. 

Izuna was removed to his own room days ago, leaving the main room first free to have its tatami replaced and now free for Sakura to occupy with her tea and light breakfast. The shōji are open, and she has a good view of the sunrise to accompany her until Madara wakes up and comes to provide better company. 

There's so much she wants to tell him, now that he has a chance in hell of maybe focusing on something besides his brother. There are so many places she's traveled since they last shared a pot of tea, so many people she's met and things she's done. There's so much to say that it's hard to know where to start. 

To her surprise, Madara breaks the silence first. He says, "On the matter of payment, I confess I don't know your standard rate. But we _will_ triple it. Whatever it is." 

"That's not necessary," she says, although if he were to pay her it would certainly be a _great deal_ of money, probably more than she's ever made before in this era, especially given the short time frame. 

"The Uchiha pay their debts." His face wavers between offended and concerned. He speaks as gently as he knows how, so he still sounds pretty angry about it, but he keeps his voice quiet. 

"I know." 

"I didn't send for you thinking to press you into working without pay—" 

"I _know_ ," Sakura repeats, interrupting him without regard for how rude it is. "I had a different form of payment in mind." 

Madara sucks in a breath. "Very well," he says carefully. "We didn't, after all, set a price before you began your work. Tell me." 

Sakura shifts back from the table a few feet and lowers herself into a careful bow from her seiza. Not as deep as the one offered by the Uchiha who'd begged her to come, but respectful. "I had thought to request a place in your clan," she says, "and in that way waive any debts between us now and in the future." 

He says nothing. 

She straightens after a moment, and glaces up at him through her lashes. "You know I would be useful," she adds. 

"I," he says. "I accept." He sounds bewildered, but not unhappy. 

Sakura lets a smile break her neutral serious negotiating face. The reputation she's built and the friendship she's fostered with Madara would _probably_ have been enough to gain entry into the village fairly early, but this is better — if she comes in with the Uchiha she'll be there as it's built. She may even get a say in _how_ it's built. 

And it will be much easier to maneuver around the slight complication of saving Izuna's life. 

"We'll begin preparations immediately," Madara promises. 

She's not sure what that means. "Preparations?" 

"For the ceremony." He hesitates. "I would prefer not to rush it. If we take our time, Izuna will be able to attend. You would be welcomed to stay as our honored guest until then, of course." 

"I don't mind waiting," Sakura says, "but...what kind of ceremony is it?" 

Maybe there's a ritual to join the clan? Sakura doesn't know much about Uchiha clan traditions, for obvious reasons, but she's gathered that they're pretty religious. 

"We make our vows to the gods, our ancestors, and each other," Madara says, "and then we leave the shrine as husband and wife." 

"Oh," says Sakura, her voice small, all the air having left the room. _Oh_. 

Of course joining the Uchiha won't be like joining the village would have been, but — she had forgotten how much she wanted to be married. She'd forgotten how much she wanted a bed to share with someone, and children, and _family_. 

Madara leans over the table and takes one of her hands up in both of his. His thumbs rub the back of her hand in small, soothing circles. "If your people had any traditions you'd like to incorporate, waiting would give us time to work those details out, too," he says to her softly. "And if your people have need of a shrine or monument, we'll build it for them. The Uchiha take care of their dead just as well as their living." 

His eyes are dark and perfect, framed by unfairly long eyelashes and full of the kind of grief Sakura hasn't let herself feel. Most of the people she's lost didn't die, not really, but that yawning emptiness, the sensation that she's left a piece of her behind somewhere and that searching for it would be fruitless— 

How strange, to find that Madara knows that feeling too, and yet not strange at all, because of course he does. This is a man that Sakura knows is driven by the very thing that pushes her forward: the need to make sure that everything terrible the world has to offer doesn't happen to her and hers. 

They share that unflinching willingness to do whatever it takes to reshape the world into something safer and better for their loved ones. Sakura's just had access to better tools and more support. 

"Thank you." Sakura's voice is choked, tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. 

Madara lifts her hand to his mouth, presses a careful kiss against her knuckles that sends electric shivers through Sakura's whole body. 

She doesn't want just chaste kisses to her hand. 

Sakura turns her hand gently, so carefully, and cups Madara's face. She leans over the table, plants her free hand just left of the teapot, and guides him into a proper kiss: her lips on his lips, tilting her head so their noses don't bump, sliding her hand back to tangle in his hair, making a pleased sound when one of his hands comes up to keep her balanced by supporting her elbow and the other rests on the back of her neck, the most intimately anyone's touched her since she came back in time. 

It's more than electric. It's an entire storm, building and swelling in Sakura's gut, a forest fire whose embers have been smoldering in the underbrush of her heart since the first pot of tea they shared. 

How much sooner could she had had this if she'd come to visit him? If she'd realized exactly what kind of gifts his hawks were bringing her and why? 

When they pull away, Sakura is flushed but very carefully _not_ panting, and Madara is looking a little dazed. 

Uchiha Madara, who's going to be her _husband_. 

Yes, this has been a much, much better plan than preemptively murdering him. 


End file.
